Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!olivea!samsung!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu!csn!news.den.mmc.com!herkimer From: herkimer@tigercat.den.mmc.com (Don Herkimer) Newsgroups: comp.software-eng Subject: Re: OOP in the "real world" Message-ID: <1991Jun21.200139.14639@den.mmc.com> Date: 21 Jun 91 20:01:39 GMT References: Sender: herkimer@tigercat (Don Herkimer) Organization: Martin Marietta Astronautics Group Lines: 36 Nntp-Posting-Host: tigercat.den.mmc.com In article , bglenden@colobus.cv.nrao.edu (Brian Glendenning) writes: |> |> We have a large software system (~600k lines of code - Fortran and C) |> which is starting to show its age (it was started before VAXes). We |> have decided to rewrite it, and the OO paradigm seems to us to be a |> good one. |> |> Some people are skeptical about the value of OO (data encapsulation |> and abstract data types are unquestioned). Unfortunately most of the |> articles you see about OO describe fairly small systems - a few 10's |> of thousands of lines of code. |> |> So, can anyone point me to any articles, or even have any anecdotal |> evidence, on OO in large software sytems? Thanks you. |> |> Brian |> -- |> Brian Glendenning - National Radio Astronomy Observatory |> bglenden@nrao.edu bglenden@nrao.bitnet (804) 296-0286 In my group at Martin Marietta we have been (re)using a large OO commercial package called the Analyst, from Xerox Special Information Systems (XSIS). It is written in Smalltalk-80 and consists of ~3.8M bytes of source code ~661 classes ~14K methods If we estimate ~25 "lines of code" per method, this application weighs in at about 350 KSLOC. Although not as big as the cited system, this can be attributed to substantial code re-use from the OO paradigm. The Analyst is a mature product (6 years old) and has over 2500 copies distributed. XSIS estimates that their productivity has been about 37 lines of code per day, which is anywhere from 3.6 to 7.2 times the "normal" production of "average" programmers. Indeed, we have found that we are also very productive using the Smalltalk-80 programming environment augmented with the Analyst classes. -- Don Herkimer 303-977-9580 Martin Marietta Space Launch Systems herkimer@tigercat.den.mmc.com